These amendments would limit the acquisition power under Clause 15(1) to acquiring development land only—that is, land which in the opinion of the authority concerned is needed for relevant development within 10 years.

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If this amendment were accepted, authorities would no longer have power under the Bill to acquire land for excepted development. They would not be able to acquire land which was suitable for relevant development but was not needed within 10 years—even if the landowner, for good reasons, wanted to sell to the authority by agreement and it would be sensible for the authority to buy and to keep the land in its existing use until needed for development.

The basic fact to be considered here is that the Government's proposals for defining the scope of the scheme by reference to the potential scope of the duty leave excepted development outside this category but still within the scope of the acquisition power. The whole concept of excepted development is based on the assumption that, though normally it will not be right for authorities to acquire land for such development, there will be circumstances in which they should do so.

Perhaps it would be helpful if I were to give a couple of examples where authorities should be able to acquire land which is necessary to facilitate development. It would, for example, be possible to use the acquisition power as the only way of ensuring that desirable recreational development was carried out. Second, authorities should be able to buy land for excepted development in order to achieve better planning. There could be instances when an authority would need to buy land for rebuilding within the terms of Schedule 8 to the 1971 Act, because that would be the only way to achieve the best results in planning terms.

The effect of these amendments is to remove the power for such acquisitions and, viewed in that way, wreck completely the concept of excepted development. For that reason, I ask the House to disagree with the other place.

The two points made by the Minister might be valid if this were the only power of compulsory acquisition in the hands of the State. But it must be emphasised that these proposals are in addition to the existing powers of compulsory acquisition.

It is wrong for the Minister to represent the position as being that the State
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could not acquire either excepted development land or land not needed for 10 years but for the Bill, even as amended by the Lords. It would be perfectly possible for local authorities to get permission from the Minister to acquire both these categories of land under other Acts, admittedly in circumstances giving a higher rate of compensation to the landowner and admittedly in circumstances giving additional rights to the landowner.

It is about confiscation that we are arguing and it is about confiscation with reduced powers of objection to the individual citizen that we are arguing in this case. Therefore, the Opposition believe that the Lords were right to restrict the powers given to local authorities in confiscating the private citizen's land.

We take this view not because we believe that local authorities are by themselves bad organisations. But if the Government thrust vast powers upon local authorities, there are possibilities at least that local authorities will misuse those powers. At present, we see the opportunities that local authorities have for misusing their powers in the provision of subsidised housing. At present, subsidised housing is used and has been used as no less than an electoral bribe. If in the future local authorities are to become the monopoly buyer and seller of development land, their opportunities for malpractices will increase vastly.

For this reason, we believe that the discretion accorded to local authorities when they are acquiring land under the penal provisions of the Bill should be limited as far as possible. Therefore, if a local authority wishes to acquire either excepted development land or land that will not be required for 10 years, it should do so under previous Acts and not under the Bill.

It must be made clear that, under the preceding Acts dealing with compulsory acquisition, the scheme was broadly that the acquiring authority would acquire at market value and that the landowner would have a wide right of objection and the right to an individual inquiry concerning each piece of land. But the Bill much reduces the rights accorded to any landowner, whether he be rich or poor.

This is a Bill for confiscation at current use value. It is a Bill for confiscation at a value that takes no account of the
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development value of land. It is also a Bill giving the States the right to confiscate, with reduced powers of objection and a reduced right to demand a public inquiry.

We are mindful of our duty to try to preserve the rights of individual citizens, whether they be rich or poor, and many landowners are very poor people. [Laughter.] I see one or two Government supporters laughing at that statement. Many individual landowners, in urban areas especially, own one or two houses. Often those houses have been reduced in value, both in capital value and in income, by the interference of the State as a result of rent control. Today we are fighting for the little people who will be ground into the dust by the forced acquisition through the confiscation of the Bill.

The Opposition believe that it is quite wrong to allow local authorities the wide discretion which previously was built into the Bill by allowing local authorities to decide what would be development "in their opinion". The proposals made by the Lords are good. They are proposals that a second Chamber should be making, because they enhance the right of the individual citizen and say to the State "If you want to acquire two types of development land, you should do so at market value and you should do it in a way that gives the individual citizen the old and considerable rights that he had under the preceding legislation for compulsory acquisition."

I have not taken part in these proceedings since the Second Reading debate, but I tried to follow carefully the discussions in Committee and the proposals now before the House.

As I understand them the powers of acquisition lying with the local authority depend significantly upon its proposals for planning and use of land on a 10-year rolling programme. I was interested to hear what the Minister said, because there seems to be some contradiction between this situation and the term
…which, in their opinion, is suitable for development.
Those words seem to take the power given to local authorities far beyond that intended to be linked to planning proposals.

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The Lords amendment restricts that right—I think wisely—to land for which a planning use is proposed. But the terms of the Bill as drafted in using the words "suitable for development" seem to take the powers outside those upon which great emphasis was placed in the past and which I thought formed a significant factor in the proposal behind this legislation.

All the reasons given by the Minister for rejecting this Lords amendment are the very reasons, taken inversely, why the Opposition feel that it is right for the House to accept them. There is this great difference between the two sides of the House as to the effect and extent of this land scheme.

The first of the amendments contains what to us are the highly objectionable words "in their opinion". As drafted, the clause reads:
An authority…shall have power to acquire…any land which, in their opinion, is suitable for development.
That is a totally selective judgment by the local authority.

We have argued through this matter at all stages of this Bill, and I shall not detain the House by arguing the case again. However, the Opposition would like to see an objective judgment taken here. If the words "in their opinion" were omitted the clause would read:
An authority…shall have power to acquire…any land which is suitable for development.
Whether the land was suitable for development could be tested elsewhere, if necessary, by the impartial courts of our land. The moment that we introduce the phrase
land which, in their opinion, is suitable for development
or land which may be acquired by the local authorities, no one may intervene apart from possibly the Secretary of State. We know what the Secretary of State's views are on land acquisition. That is why we are considering the Bill.

Therefore, on this matter there can be no agreement between the two sides. The right hon. Gentleman says that these amendments seek to turn excepted development into exempted development. Of course, that is precisely what we want to see. We have already expressed our
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view on the question of the single dwelling. We have said that that should be exempted from acquisition by a local authority and not, as the Minister would like, only exempted until such time as a local authority thinks that the dwelling is suitable for comprehensive development purposes. In such a situation the private citizen's rights would be much at risk and indeed in danger as became clear from the answer which the Minister gave during the debate on that matter.

The Minister announced some weeks ago with a great fanfare of trumpets the exceptions concerning the building industry. He told the industry not to worry. He said that the Government would enable it to carry on its work because there would be excluded from the operation of this scheme any development for industrial or commercial property of up to 15,000 square feet or, for housing, up to 10,000 square feet. The building industry was told that this would mean that schemes involving 10 or 12 houses would be excluded from the provisions of the Bill. Those schemes are only excluded to the extent that they are "excepted" and we know that "excepted" means that a local authority can always override a proposal if it decides that the land is suitable for development on a more comprehensive basis. Therefore, these exceptions are really not worth the paper they are written on. Although we may be told that it is intended that it will be done this, that, or the other way, we should like those intentions to be spelt out in the Bill, even at risk of the Undersecretary—who is no longer present—saying that I get over-excited when I ask that matters be properly spelt out in the Bill.

I shall not go over the ground again, because, as the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) has said, there is a philosophical gulf between the two parties. However, unlike his hon.
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Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) I believe that one Second Reading speech is enough.

I know that the hon. Member for Hornsey fully accepts and understands the position. However, he always seems slightly to miss the point that if a local authority when dealing with an excepted development makes a CPO, because it has the power, it is still the Secretary of State who decides whether it can exercise that power. I suppose that it is a matter of emphasis between us, but I do not know.

I should like to deal briefly with some of the other points. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) made his usual all-stages speech. It was not a Second Reading speech, but it was an all-purpose one. He makes it very well, whether it is apposite or not. As it happens, on this occasion it was not really apposite, because the amendments have no implications concerning compensation. However, I like listening to him and I have grown to listen to what he says with interest. He always says everything well.

I should like to tell the House what I believe are good reasons why we should not have left acquisition to the existing housing and planning Acts, including the Housing Act 1971, which was the child of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). The Land Authority for Wales is not a local authority, and therefore we should have had to make some provision anyway in the Bill for it to be able to acquire. In general, if we made arrangements under the existing housing and planning Acts there would be two types of fragmentation. First, there would be fragmented compulsory purchase orders. They would not be insuperable, but they are messy, difficult and time consuming. Secondly, I am sure that the right hon. Member for Crosby, when considering the matter purely as a draftsman—I accept that he dislikes intensely the whole principle of the Bill—would accept that it is desirable in a Bill to get all the powers together. Therefore, that would be much better than leaving this to be done, as has been suggested, under the existing housing and planning powers. Indeed, as these powers already exist, the only real objection to them along that line of argument is duplication. However, in my view, as a
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matter of tidiness, we should put them in this legislation.

I promise not to keep the House long on these amendments, because there is this difference which, as the hon. Member for Hornsey fairly said, exists between us. I am sure that I would weary the House if I kept on repeating myself